My Inspirational New Year's Post

I'm not a New Year's Resolution kind of person. I have vague memories of making resolutions as a kid that never made it past the first or second week of January. I know some people do resolutions, and a few are successful. For me, when it's time to make a life change, the change usually finds me.

Instead of creating grand, doomed-to-failure goals about how I will become the perfect, well-rounded person before February, I watch for opportunities for change throughout the year and take them when they come. I quit smoking in a random August three years ago because that's when I happened to find the right method (medication, if you want to know). I re-learned to knit because I was bored and was feeling the impulse to create something usable. You all know how that went. I joined a gym because an inexpensive one opened near my house. None of those changes depended on the calendar, and they've all been successful (so far--the gym membership is still in beta testing). 

And that's how it works for me. I think of something I want to do--it may have been percolating for months or years--and suddenly I know that NOW is the time, and I do it.

There are some new life changes that I'm getting ready to start or have just started. Less knitting, more reading is one. Before I was a fanatical knitter, I was a fanatical reader, and I miss that. So I decided recently that when the Christmas knitting was finished, I would knit less and read more. I've been spending my evenings with Lauren Groff's Arcadia this last week, and only knitting right before bed. And while riding in cars and waiting in restaurants and listening to basketball games on the radio. Okay, so there's still a whole lot of knitting.

I've also started writing in a more, shall we say, determined way, and no, I don't just mean blogging about Brewster's diarrhea. You can see only so many middle-of-the-road novels before you start wondering why other people are making an income at it and you aren't. So I've been working on the plot for a novel, and have an idea for a nonfiction book as well. I don't know if either of them will make it into the world (and please don't ask me about it because I will get all embarrassed), but it's been fun to work on and I have no plans to stop. I decided to work on writing back in October, and if I had waited until January 1 to start, I likely would have forgotten that I ever intended to try. 

So if you're tired of resolving to lose the same 10 pounds every year, join me, won't you? Shun the New Year's Resolution! Don't change one damn thing "starting tomorrow." Instead, make changes when they come to you. It works. I promise.